Theory of Social Teaching - Age Psychology

Theory of Social Learning

The concept of social learning shows how a child adapts in the modern world, how he absorbs the habits and norms of modern society. Representatives of this trend believe that along with classical conditioning and operant learning, there is also learning by imitation and imitation. Such learning began to be considered in American psychology as a new, third form of learning. It should be noted that in the theory of social learning the problem of development is posed from the point of view of the child's original antagonism and society borrowed from Freudianism.

In social psychology, the notion socialization - of the process and result of the assimilation and active reproduction of the individual social experience, carried out in communication and activity, has long been firmly established in social psychology. Socialization can occur both in conditions of spontaneous influence on the personality of various circumstances of life in society, sometimes having the character of differently directed factors, and under conditions of upbringing, that is, purposeful formation of personality. Education is the leading and decisive beginning of socialization. This concept was introduced into social psychology in the 1940s and 1950s. in the works of A. Bandura, J. Coleman, and others. In different scientific schools the notion of socialization received a different interpretation: in neo-Israelism it is interpreted as social learning; in the school of symbolic interactionism - as a result of social interaction; in humanistic psychology - as self-actualization of the "I-concept."

The phenomenon of socialization is multifaceted, therefore, each of these directions focuses attention on one of the sides of the phenomenon being studied.

The problem of social learning involved American psychologists A. Bandura, R. Sears, B. Skinner and other scientists.

Albert Bandura (1925) believed that in order to form a new behavior, not enough reward and punishment. Therefore, he opposed the transfer of the results obtained on animals to the analysis of human behavior. He believed that children acquire new behavior through observation and imitation, i. E. imitating important people for them, and identification, ie, by borrowing the feelings and actions of another authoritative person.

Bandura conducted research on child and youth aggressiveness. A group of children showed films in which different patterns of adult behavior (aggressive and non-aggressive) were presented, with different consequences (reward or punishment). So, the film showed how an adult aggressively treats toys. After watching the film, the children were left alone and played with toys similar to the ones they saw in the film. As a result, the aggressive behavior of children who watched the film intensified and manifested more often than in children who did not watch it. If aggressive aggressive behavior was rewarded in the film, aggressiveness in the behavior of children also increased. For another group

Children who watched the film, where the aggressive behavior of adults was punishable, it decreased.

Bandura singled out the dyad stimulus-reaction and introduced into this scheme four intermediate processes to explain how the imitation of the model leads to the formation of new behavior in children:

1) attention to the action of the model;

2) memory of the effects of the model;

3) motor skills that allow you to reproduce what you see;

4) the motivation that determines the child's desire to reproduce what he has seen.

Thus, A. Bandura recognized the role of cognitive processes in the formation and regulation of behavior based on imitation.

Famous American psychologist R. Sears (1908-1998) proposed the principle of dyadic analysis of the development of personality , which consists in the fact that many personality traits are initially formed in so-called dyadic situations , because the actions of a person depend on another person and are focused on him. The relations between the mother and the child, the teacher and the pupil, the son and the father, etc., can be referred to dyadic relations. The scientist believed that there are no strictly fixed and unchanging personality traits, since human behavior always depends on the personal properties of the other member of the dyad. Sears singled out three phases of the child's development.

1) the phase of rudimentary behavior, based on innate needs and learning in early childhood, in the first months of life;

2) the phase of primary motivational systems - learning within the family (the main phase of socialization);

3) the phase of secondary motivational systems - learning outside the family (goes beyond the early age and is associated with admission to school).

It is obvious that the main in the process of socialization Sears considered the influence of parents on the upbringing of children.

The central component of learning, according to Sears, was dependence, i.e. the need of a child that can not be ignored. It is known that the first dependence that occurs in a child is dependence on the mother, the peak of which falls on early childhood. Sears identified five forms of dependent behavior.

1. Negative Attention Search (the child tries to attract the attention of adults through quarrels, disobedience, breaking up of relationships, which can be due to low demands and insufficient restrictions on the child).

2. Permanent confirmation search (it's an apology, a request, an excessive promise or search for protection, comfort, consolation.) The reason is inflated demands on the child, especially regarding his achievements on the part of both parents.

3. Finding Positive Attention (expressed in the search for praise, desire to join or leave the group).

4. "Staying nearby (a constant presence near another child or group of children, adults.) This form can be called "immature", a passive form of manifestation in the behavior of positive dependence.

5. Touch & hold - this is a non-aggressive touch, hugging or restraining others. Here it is possible to talk about the immature dependent form of behavior.

P. Sears believed that parents need to find the middle path in education and adhere to the following rule: not too strong, not too weak dependence; not too strong, not too weak identification.

The role of encouragement and punishment in the formation of new behavior was considered by the American psychologist-neobyhviorist B. Skinner (1904-1990). The main concept of his concept is reinforcement , i.e. Reducing or increasing the likelihood that this behavior will occur again. The researcher also considered the role of reward in this process, but shared the role of reinforcement and reward in the formation of new behavior, believing that reinforcement reinforces behavior, and the reward does not always help it. In his opinion, reinforcement is positive and negative, primary (food, water, cold) and conditional (money, signs of love, attention, etc.).

B. Skinner opposed the punishment and believed that it can not give a lasting and lasting effect, and ignoring bad behavior can replace punishment.

The American psychologist J. Gevirz paid much attention to the study of the conditions for the emergence of social motivation and attachment of an infant to an adult, and an adult to a child. It was based on achievements in the field of social psychology and the ideas of Sears and Skinner. Gevirz came to the conclusion that the source of motivation for the child's behavior is

The stimulating influence of the environment and learning on the basis of reinforcement, as well as various reactions of the child, such as laughter, tears, smile, etc.

The American psychologist W. Bronfsnbrenner believed that the results of laboratory research should be checked in vivo (in a family or group of peers).

He paid special attention to the structure of the family and other social institutions as the most important factors in the development of children's behavior. Therefore, he conducted his studies, watching the families.

Bronfenbrenner studied the origin of the phenomenon of "age segregation" in American families, consisting in the fact that young people can not find their place in society. As a result, a person feels isolated from the people around him and even feels hostile towards them. Having found the end in the end, he likes, he does not get satisfaction from work, and interest in it soon fades. This fact of detachment of young people from other people and the real cause in American psychology was called alienation.

The roots of alienation Bronfenbrenner sees in the following features of modern families:

• the work of mothers;

• an increase in the number of divorces and, accordingly, the number of children growing up without fathers;

• lack of communication between children and fathers due to their employment at work;

• Inadequate communication with parents due to the appearance of televisions and separate rooms;

• rare communication with relatives and neighbors.

All these and many other, even more unfavorable conditions affect the child's mental development, which leads to alienation, the causes of which are in the disorganization of the family. However, according to Bronfenbrenner, disorganizing forces originate initially not in the family itself, but in the way of life of the whole society and in the objective circumstances that families face.

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